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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26873635">Mountains of the Moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mountains of the Moon [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Everything is kept vague, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Pre-Canon, Ramsay Bolton is His Own Warning, and the depression that could come with it, and this is kinda the aftermath of it, but again everything is kinda implied, characters are aged up and in their late teens, ramsay is also barely refered to, the north has a civil war</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:13:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26873635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I was meant to marry the king. Would I have made you proud then? Her voice whispered in her mind. Sansa swallowed and pressed her head against her tangled hands.</p><p>It would have been better had she died.</p><p>But instead, she lived. She lived, the cause of a hundred deaths and pregnant with the child of a man whose name she would never utter if asked. She lived. She lived. She lived.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mountains of the Moon [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mountains of the Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>some tidbits of info. Starks and Boltons had a civil war and the Boltons had Jon and Sansa kept as hostages in Dreadfort with Ramsey. Jon got tortured but Sansa was kept relatively safe because of her trueborn status at least until the end.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fear still lingered within her here in the Godswoods.</p><p>No matter how many times Sansa told herself that it was different now, that there are guards now posted at the entrance, the exits, and on the walls, far more than they were before, the fear remained always.</p><p>She sat on the cut off branch next to the weirwood tree. May perhaps the old gods could whisper the answer to her questions. It was after all in a way their fault that she was in this mess in the first place. It was a blasphemes thought. Yet, she could not stop thinking of it. What had she done to deserve this?  She had tried to be perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect lady that her mother and father could ask.</p><p>But it was not enough for her father so how could it have been enough for the gods? The old and the new?</p><p>Sansa felt tears in her eyes and for once, she let them go. There was no one in the godswoods close enough to see her tears or close enough to hear her sobs. Only the old gods and, Sansa lifted one hand to press against her stomach – it was showing now, why hadn’t she noticed? – The one who had yet to be born.</p><p>Back when she was with the Boltons, she had cried every day thinking of how much she would cry if she ever saw her mother again. Imagining just a minute in her arms would leave her a sobbing mess. She had thought she would tell her mother all the ways that the Boltons had hurt her, all the places they had touched and her mother would help Sansa sleep it all away.</p><p>It had been a dream.</p><p>Sansa could not afford to speak as freely as she had imagined, not just for her own sake. Her mother had tried of course, in her own way and Sansa could not have been more grateful yet Catylen Stark eyes held so much pity for her daughter’s armor of strength that Sansa did not have the courage to see what her mother’s eyes would look like if she ever let it drop. So she would not cry in front of her mother. She would not cry in front of her father who had decided all together to ignore her and the shame she had brought on House Stark.</p><p> <em>I was meant to marry the king. Would I have made you proud then?</em> Her voice whispered in her mind. Sansa swallowed and pressed her head against her tangled hands.</p><p>It would have been better had she died.</p><p>But instead, she lived. She lived, the cause of a hundred deaths and pregnant with the child of a man whose name she would never utter if asked. She lived. She lived. She lived. </p><p>The moontea her mother prepared, before Maester Luwin had made it clear what taking it now could mean for Sansa, sat on her desk. Sansa had Jeyne sneak in the kitchen to steal it when her mother had ordered the maid to throw it away, unwilling to listen to Sansa’s protests. To her, a bastard child born of rape was not worth losing her daughter. They would figure out what to do after the birth, her mother had assured.  Sansa wondered what her mother would think if she knew the truth of the matter. She wondered if her mother even considered that perhaps it was worth it to Sansa. That perhaps ridding the world of her and a sin against the gods was what Sansa wanted. Sansa could remember was the look on father’s face when mother had told of her pregnancy and the look on Robb’s. It was the most hideous face she had ever seen her brother make, that for a second she feared he knew what kind of abomination was growing in her womb. </p><p>The moontea. Sansa had brought the cup to her lips even though her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She had known that drinking it would most likely kill her. But what Sansa feared was how the thought did not seem so bad against the pitying looks in Arya’s eyes, and in Jeyne’s face who would cry the moment she saw Sansa walk into the room. </p><p>There was a noise behind her. And Sansa whirled around so deadly afraid but it was only Jon which perhaps was worse. Did he know yet? She wondered. Someone should have told him. But who would? Mother had only told the matter to father and Robb the night before. The news would spread soon but for now, why would anyone think to tell Jon Snow?</p><p>They would if they knew the truth.</p><p>Despite where she was, Sansa could still see the trembling stick Jon was holding. He would need it for life, she remembered Maester Luwin telling her. The limp he had now would never go away. The Boltons had taken away his ability to walk properly or run. She wondered about the shakes.  Did this place haunt him just as much as it haunted her? Did he wonder how different life would have been for him if Jon Snow had just decided to sleep for a little more while? The Boltons would have only taken her away. Not both of them.</p><p>She remembered that morning. How the night was chiller than usual and Sansa and Arya had decided to sleep in one room as they once had instead of telling the tired maid to dig out the heavy blankets. She remembered Joffery’s letter from the morning before, how he had requested her father to send Sansa south for them to marry sooner than expected on the account of the ill king. Sansa had been excited and so nervous. She had prayed to the new gods in her mother’s sept the moment the sun came up and went to the godswood to pray to the old ones. She had found Jon on knees in front of the heart tree there.</p><p>They had laughed at something. Sansa could not remember what.  </p><p>“I’m sorry.” She heard Jon and watched him walk away. It was the only thing Jon would say to her now. I’m sorry.</p><p> It was the only thing Sansa could bear to listen to either way. For so many days, Sansa couldn’t bring herself to look at his face either. The urge to run, to stop breathing would consume her. Jon and she had always lived in two different worlds before and it would be better for both of them to live in those worlds again. As far away from each other as possible. It was for the best.</p><p>But now? Would that even be possible? Sansa brushed her tears away. He had a right to know.  For a moment she remembered him above her. Her face flushed and she felt what little food she had eaten the night before stuck in her throat. <em>That doesn’t give him any rights.</em> None at all. But then she remembered his face; blooded and thin. Hallow and wet with tears. What would he not stop saying? In between all the laughs that surrounded them both? <em>I’m sorry</em>.</p><p>He was crying like a child back then. Like a baby screaming and sobbing with snort covering his face. That was what Jon Snow looked like. That’s how she probably looked like as well.</p><p>“Jon..”</p><p>Jon stopped immediately. It was achingly slow to watch him turn towards her. Jon and she hadn’t had a single conversation since coming back. Sansa wouldn’t have minded if they never had one at all again.</p><p> She got up from where she sat. It hurt still to move. Not as much as before but the pain was always there. The two of them had yet to recover physically from the months the Boltons had held them both captured. The starvation, the beatings, the sickness were sustained for eternity. The wounds could not heal so quickly.</p><p>Sansa played with her fingers. She could not look up from the ground. Could not find the words. It was cruel of her to make him wait, to make him stand for so long. Maester Luwin had told him to rest his leg to stop it from getting infected again as she had heard. But from somewhere she found her voice.</p><p>“I’m with a child.” She glanced up only after she said those words. The horror on his face was evident. There were tears in his eyes already. “No.” he stepped back but lost his footing and fell.  Sansa moved on instinct to help but stopped herself short. He was on the ground already and she did not want to come any closer. “No” he kept muttering.</p><p><em>No</em>. she thought too and finally looked away. Her fingers twitched helplessly telling her to run.</p><p>“Kill it” she heard Jon. “let it die. Let it never exist. I can’t” he says and stops. <em>What makes you think that I can? </em> </p><p>“I would.” She tells him. “But I can’t. It’s too late.”Finally, their eyes meet. The reality of what they have to face in front of them. If the child is born and dies perhaps some little pieces of them could be saved. If not… Sansa looked away. What kind of mother she was? To want her own child to die?</p><p>Jon hung his head between his legs, his hands hiding away his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.” He kept saying over and over again.</p><p>Sansa swallowed. She should say something. But what could she? Was it his fault really? Was it hers? She remembered Jon’s screams, the way they had beaten his leg over and over again. She remembered her own. Hadn’t she begged them to stop? Hadn’t he? How blinded they had become by the realization that no help would come. That this was the only way that the other would live? That they had to do what those monsters were telling them to?</p><p>That day, Jon’s life had been in her hands like hers was in his. Dimly, Sansa realized she had fallen down. She did not remember the fall. They would have beaten him to death. They would not have stopped. Would have made death as painful as possible for him. <em>I had no choice</em>, she thought and felt her tears impossibly warm.  “I had no choice”, she said aloud to make it more real. She remembered Jon's laugh, when Bolton told him what to do. She remembered how he stopped after Ramsey cut off her ear and threw it at his feet. “We had no choice. It’s not our fault.” She told Jon.</p><p>It’s not our fault. She told herself.</p><p>--</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I read way too many fanfics where Jon and Sansa are forced by whosoever. Most of these fics were more about the smut etc. and not an attack on anyone but people would just gloss over it? I mean just ignore how horrific it would actually be. </p><p>but I guess I just wanted to see what might have happened realistically and wanted to write the aftermath of something like this. The devastation that someone would feel. Also, in case you missed it, both sansa and jon were hurt and beaten whenever one of them hesitated. so both of them are physically very hurt and injured even tho its not the main focus.<br/>I couldn't stop thinking of how it might actually play out so yeah eventually I wrote this down. I kept it as vague as possible because, in the end, I couldn't bring myself to write any details. The details that I did include ones felt necessary as the story wouldn't have made sense otherwise.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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